Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau,Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World

David Denby

ISBN 10: 0684809753 / ISBN 13: 9780684809755

Published by Simon & Schuster, New York, 1996

About this Item

Gift quality book which is signed by author below his name on title page. Doubleday autograph sticker is on front of dust jacket. Copyright number line begins with the number 2.

Seller Inventory # 005884

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau,Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster, New York
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684809753
• ISBN 13: 9780684809755
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: As New
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

In Great Books, Denby lives the common adult fantasy of returning to school with some worldly knowledge and experience of life. A gifted story-teller, he leads us on a glorious tour - by turns eloquent, witty, and moving - through the works themselves and through his experiences as a middle-aged man among freshmen. He recounts his failures and triumphs as a reader and student (taking an exam led to a hilarious near-breakdown). He celebrates his rediscovery or new appreciation of such authors as Homer, Plato, the biblical writers, Augustine, Boccaccio, Hegel, Austen, Marx, Nietzsche, and Virginia Woolf. He re-creates the atmosphere of the classroom - the strategies used by a remarkable group of teachers and the strengths and weaknesses of media-age students as they grapple with these difficult, sometimes frightening works. And all year long he watches the students grow and his own life and memories break out of hiding.

About the Author

David Denby

David Denby has been film critic of New York magazine since 1978, and is a contributing editor of The New Yorker. His reviews and essays have also appeared in The New Republic, The Atlantic, and The New York Review of Books. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, novelist Cathleen Schine, and their two sons.